that are not your common stool pigeons.
The ravens occupy the east
side of the tracks.
The gulls guard the windy west.
On garbage day they all rise early
not for worms in the green box holes-
they know the small fries
are at the bottom of paper bags.
We had a murder
before our pine tree was felled
from illness. Yet, like serial flyers,
they moved to another pine,
preferring needles and sap
to the plethora of palms;
mexican fan, kintia, canary,
the King and Queen and the Phoenix.
The ravens also get dates,
taking them out to
happening intersections
and drop them so they
get cracked by cars,
rolling through
rolling through
while the fair gulls glide along
bellies filled with stale soft bread-
And I remember good old Fred.
Taken in and taught by those
crows
how to
blend in seamlessly-though he's a cockatoo.
They fly as one flock
rise and cockcrow,
the gulls sneer and squawk.
The city birds are not blind
deaf or dumb,
winged with wayward choice
The murder
doesn't mind
one more white bird
or a cock or two.
Image By Liftarn (Traced from Image:Odin's ravens right.PNG) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
